(NZZ AM SONNTAG): The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.

(OTTMAR EDENHOFFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.

(NZZ): That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.

(EDENHOFFER): Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

(NZZ): De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.

(EDENHOFFER): First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

For the record, Edenhoffer was co-chair of the IPCC's Working Group III, and was a lead author of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007 which controversially concluded, "Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

As such, this man is a huge player in advancing this theory, and he has now made it quite clear - as folks on the realist side of this debate have been saying for years - that this is actually an international economic scheme designed to redistribute wealth.

"And I would also suggest to my Free Enterprise colleagues -- especially conservatives here -- whether you think it's all a bunch of hooey, what we've talked about in this committee, the Chinese don't. And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century. They plan on innovating around these problems, and selling to us, and the rest of the world, the technology that'll lead the 21st century," Inglis told his colleagues. "So we may just press the pause button here for several years, but China is pressing the fast-forward button. And as a result, if we wake up in several years and we say, 'geez, this didn't work very well for us.'"

And who said this ....??
He gets it, he must read some of my posts here... how the deniers are costing us our future.

Not every reader of Scientific American magazine is a scientist. But the responses of the 7,000 readers (6,767 as of Friday morning) who've taken the magazine's online poll strongly suggest that claims of a consensus are, at best, an exaggeration.

More than three-fourths (77.7%) say natural processes are causing climate change and almost a third (31.9%) blame solar variation. Only 26.6% believe man is the cause. (The percentages exceed 100 because respondents were allowed to choose more than one cause on this question.)

SciAm "horrified" by "the co-opting of the poll" by users of "the well-known climate denier site, Watts Up With That"

Quote:

Just how weak is the case of the anti-science disinformers? In his written testimony for the recent House hearing on climate science, leading science denier Patrick Michaels of the pro-pollution Cato Institute, devoted two pages to the most unscientific evidence possible an online poll.

Michaels, who recently said Big Oil funds some 40% of his work, based a key part of his testimony on the results of an online poll by Scientific American that was gamed by the deniers themselves, as SciAm has documented.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

Yesterday morning, at a House hearing on climate change, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) mocked his Republican colleagues for refusing to acknowledge the truth and danger of global warming. ThinkProgress has the story and video.

In June, Inglis became one of the first incumbent Republicans to be knocked off by a far-right insurgent Tea Party candidate. Since then, Inglis who has maintained a very high 93 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union has blasted the GOP for using racism to whip voters into a frenzy, for following those personalities [such as Fox News host Glenn Beck] and not leading, and for deceiving voters with conspiracy theories about death panels and preying on their fears.

Yesterday morning, at a House subcommittee hearing, Inglis mocked his Republican colleagues who deny science, saying, They slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night, and theyre experts on climate change. He also warned that while they posture to score political points, China will surpass the U.S. in clean technology:

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

According to broad international agreement, a global warming increase beyond 2°C is unacceptable (1). Because of the physics of the climate system, we must ensure that global emissions of greenhouse gases peak and start to decline rapidly within a decade in order to have a reasonable chance of meeting the 2°C goal (2). Humankind has waffled and delayed for decades; further delay risks serious consequences for people and the ecosystems on which we rely.

Because the potential consequences of climate change are so high, the science community has an obligation to help people, organizations, and governments make informed decisions. Yet existing institutions are not well suited to this task. Therefore, we call for the science community to develop, implement, and sustain an independent initiative with a singular mandate: to actively and effectively share information about climate change risks and potential solutions with the public, particularly decision-makers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors......

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

Professor Phil Jones, the scientist at the centre of the Climategate row, has insisted that global warming sceptics will be won over once the negative effects become obvious.

Last year Prof Jones was accused of manipulating climate change data after leaked emails showed he resisted Freedom of Information requests to the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit from climate change s[k]eptics.

An independent review in July found that staff at the unit were "unhelpful" and not sufficiently open about research, but cleared them of dishonesty.

Recently reinstated to his post, Prof Jones said he had been the victim of a deliberate sabotage of the Copenhagen talks......

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

the New Oxford American Dictionary named refudiate, a word first made famous by Palin this past summer, its 2010 Word of the Year.
Expect next year to see the dictionary include the following entry:

Refudiate verb used loosely to mean reject: She called on them to refudiate the proposal to build a mosque. [origin blend of refute and repudiate]

In a statement Monday, editors from the dictionary said that based on the different contexts in which Palin has used refudiate, we have concluded that neither refute nor repudiate seems consistently precise, and that refudiate more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of reject.

Its wondrous how the vast and the infinitesimal combine to make our planet work. Scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found that bacteria in the ocean, gathering in sort of microbial block parties, communicate and cooperate with each other to have a significant impact on how carbon dioxide is transferred from the atmosphere to the deep sea.
In this newly discovered mechanism, bacteria coalesce on tiny particles of carbon-rich detritus sinking in the ocean. They send out chemical signals to discern if other bacteria are in the neighborhood. If enough of their compadres are nearby, the bacteria en masse commence sending out enzymes that break up the particles into more digestible bits (see interactive below).

As a result, a substantial amount of carbon does not sink to the depths, which affects both the marine food web and the planets climate. The re-released carbon can be reused by marine plants, and less carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas, is drawn out of the air into the ocean. In addition, less carbon is effectively transferred to the bottom of the ocean, from where it cannot easily return to the atmosphere.

The finding represents the first evidence that bacterial communication plays a crucial role in Earths carbon cycle. It was reported Feb. 22 at the American Geophysical Unions Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, Ore., by WHOI marine biogeochemists Laura Hmelo, Benjamin Van Mooy, and Tracy Mincer.

You do remember the carbon cycle?

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

And, as so commonly happens, a new peer-reviewed study determines the skeptics' hard-wired bogus B.S. detectors were correct, and the 'crooks & liars' alarmists were wrong, again.

Quote:

"One of the major tenets of Climate Alarmism is that global warming will lead to the occurrence of both more floods and more droughts. Hence, it is important to check for trends in river flows that may indicate a growing propensity for such to occur; and that is what Zhang et al. did within the Susquehanna River Basin.....Based on long-term continuous daily streamflow records ending in 2006 for eight unregulated streams with record-lengths ranging from 68 to 93 years that yielded an average length of 82.5 years.....The four researchers report there was "a considerable increase in annual minimum flow for most of the examined watersheds and a noticeable increase in annual median flow for about half of the examined watersheds." However, they found that annual maximum streamflow "does not show significant long-term change.".....In the case of the Susquehanna River Basin, however, there is no support for this contention, since increases in minimum streamflow suggest a propensity for less severe and/or less frequent drought. And the fact that annual maximum streamflow shows no significant long-term change suggests there has likely been no significant long-term change at the opposite end of the spectrum, where floods might be expected." [Zhang, Z., Dehoff, A.D., Pody, R.D. and Balay, J.W. 2010]

Bjorn Lomborg ("Can Anything Serious Happen in Cancun?", op-ed, Nov. 12) claims that government spending on global warming policies is wasted, but he assumes that global warming caused by carbon dioxide is a fact. It is not. We base this statement not on the opinions of 31,000 American scientists who signed a public statement rejecting this warming hypothesis (the "Oregon Petition"), but rather because the forecasts of global warming were derived from faulty procedures.

We published a peer-reviewed paper showing that the forecasting procedures used by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change violated 72 of 89 relevant principles (e.g., "provide full disclosure of methods"). The IPCC has been unable to explain why it violated such principles. In response, we developed a model that follows the principles. Because the climate is complex and poorly understood, our model predicts that global average temperatures will not change.

In testing the models on global temperature data since 1850, we found that the long-range (91-to-100-years ahead) forecast errors from the IPCC's projection were 12 times larger than the errors from our simple model.

Mr. Lomborg concludes there are better ways for governments to spend the funds devoted to global warming. We suggest this money should instead be returned to taxpayers.

A year ago, the climate debate was rocked by 'Climategate'. Email servers at the University of East Anglia were hacked, emails were stolen and distributed on the Internet. Out-of-context quotes were cited as evidence that the entire scientific case for global warming was all just a conspiracy.

Even now, 12 months later, 'Climategate' is the most popular skeptic argument. But there is one question that skeptics seem to avoid:

Has the science changed? Is there any change to the many independent lines of evidence for human-caused global warming? This question is never asked because of the answer:

The evidence for human caused global warming is as solid as ever.

There are many lines of evidence that humans are causing global warming. Independent measurements of different aspects of the climate using a range of techniques by scientists all over the world all point to the same answer.* When we consider the full body of evidence, we see a distinct, discernable human fingerprint on climate change.....

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

A prominent French climate change sceptic has been forced to eat his words in emphatic fashion after the Academie des Sciences, of which he is a member, published a report contradicting his claims.

Putting a lid on what has become its own version of the UK's 'climategate' row, France's most august scientific body yesterday declared that global warming exists and has unquestionably been caused by the activities of mankind.....

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

Surprise - a British panel ruled that the scandal known as ClimateGate that supposedly revealed the manipulation of certain data strengthen the case of manmade global warming was much ado about nothing. But, The New York Times in a July 7 story called these findings of an inquiry led by Muir Russell, a retired British civil servant and educator, "a sweeping exoneration" of the ClimateGate scientists in question.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

This week marks the first anniversary of the worldwide scandal over the release of e-mails stolen from a computer server at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, UK. The server was in the university's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), most of the correspondents involved were climate scientists and the affair will be forever known as Climategate. The scientist at the centre of the storm, Phil Jones, the head of CRU, tells Nature on page 362 that he feels the worst is behind him.

It would be naive for Jones and other scientists to assume that the fuss has passed into history. Never mind that almost all of the accusations thrown at the researchers involved have been proven baseless. Never mind that much of the media has retreated from the aggressive stance it adopted during its 'comment first, ask questions later' approach to the content of the e-mails. And never mind that the scientific basis for the global-warming problem remains as solid as it was a year ago. Huge damage has been done to the reputation of climate science, and arguably to science as a whole. That impact deserves to be assessed and the necessary lessons need to be learned.......

Just as scientists cannot choose the name of future scandals, they cannot choose where allegations will appear. The UEA has taken some justified heavy fire for its handling of the crisis, which was crippled by the enforced absence on medical grounds of Jones, its chief defence witness. Had Jones been strong enough to face the media at the beginning, and say many of the things he says now, the crisis may have blown itself out. The UEA hierarchy misjudged the need to respond and the role that Internet blogs now play in seeding stories for the mainstream media. I won't worry about it until I hear it on the [BBC Radio] Today programme, one university official said when pointed to early online coverage at the time. He got his wish a few days later. By then, the Climategate was already swinging off its hinges.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

With global warming hitting the Tibetan plateau hard, scientists gather to plan an international research campaign to understand and mitigate changes at the 'third pole'.

Cold, remote and threatened by global warming: the description applies not only to the North and South Poles, but also to a region of more than five million square kilometres, centred on the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas, that researchers call the third pole (see Nature 454, 393396, 2008). After the Arctic and the Antarctic, the region has Earth's largest store of ice, in more than 46,000 glaciers and vast expanses of permafrost. Yet it is much less studied than its high-latitude counterparts, even though many more lives depend on it.....

The evidence that is available is telling. Using a combination of satellite and ground measurements, a team led by Liu Shiyin, a glaciologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute in Lanzhou, has just completed the second Chinese national glacier inventory, documenting some 24,300 glaciers and recording characteristics such as their locations, lengths and surface areas. It shows that the total surface area of glaciers has decreased by 17% and that many have disappeared since the last inventory began, roughly 30 years ago.....

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

So far, scientists trying to forecast the glaciers' future have had little to go on. For one thing, says Thompson, "glaciers respond to climate differently depending on their size, altitude distribution, surface area, debris cover and valley characteristics". And little is known about how climate is changing across the third pole.

Yang Kun, a climate scientist at the ITP, found that many satellite-based measurements of Earth's radiation budget — the balance of incoming solar radiation and outgoing heat — did not work well at the third pole's high elevations, because instruments are typically calibrated and verified against ground-truth data from the lowlands. They can be corrected using field measurements, but across the region, only 16 weather stations lie above 5,000 metres.

Investigators can't rely on climate models, either. Using data from the only weather station at 8,000 metres, on the South Col pass between mounts Everest and Lhotse, Kenichi Ueno, a climate scientist at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, showed that global climate models do not predict moisture and radiation flux well at such high altitude, especially in hot weather or monsoon season. "If you want to know how climate affects glaciers, such details are crucial," he says. "It's extremely important to have more high-altitude observations across the region."

So...they have little to no idea what will happen with the glaciers in the future, they admit the climate models are inadequate, yet they are all too willing to blame it on humans and advocate government policies to "fix" the "problem".

So...they have little to no idea what will happen with the glaciers in the future, they admit the climate models are inadequate, yet they are all too willing to blame it on humans and advocate government policies to "fix" the "problem".

Claims based on email soundbites are demonstrably false there is manifestly no evidence of clandestine data manipulation .

In a unique experiment, The Guardian published online the full manuscript of its major investigation into the climate science emails stolen from the University of East Anglia, which revealed apparent attempts to cover up flawed data; moves to prevent access to climate data; and to keep research from climate sceptics out of the scientific literature.

Written by former BBC correspondent and editor James Painter, Summoned By Science surveys how news organisations around the world reported climate change during those two tumultuous weeks.

Among the findings is that less than 10% of articles (from the media groups and countries surveyed) majored on climate science, the overwhelming majority focussing on the political dramas played out in the conference halls.

And what of "Climategate", the heat surrounding the batch of e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit immediately before the summit?

Countless thousands of words since have been written about this incident, and the fallout from it - notably by Fred Pearce in his thorough, readable and provocative book The Climate Files......

Some editors, judging by comments in the report, were persuaded by "Climategate" that the entire edifice of climate science was a crock, and have chosen to cast an already "difficult" subject out of their news pages and programmes.

Yet the fundamental reason for reporting climate change - because it threatens major changes to our lives, and the prospects of future generations endures......

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

Oh gee look, a study funded and conducted by the Indian government saying they're going to be the hardest hit by "climate change".

The government of India is positioning itself for a large piece of the pie, should the "developed world" deem it necessary to implement a wealth redistribution ponzi scheme under the guise of "saving the planet".

Oh gee look, a study funded and conducted by the Indian government saying they're going to be the hardest hit by "climate change".

The government of India is positioning itself for a large piece of the pie, should the "developed world" deem it necessary to implement a wealth redistribution ponzi scheme under the guise of "saving the planet".

Trying to make the case that there is no evidence of data manipulation? The emails themselves spoke of data manipulation. The emails that weren't deleted before we could get to them, anyway.

Interesting read. A journalist trying to figure out how to cover "climate change" these days. How about reporting, you know...facts.

Researchers must take a more aggressive approach to counter shoddy journalism and set the scientific record straight, says Simon L. Lewis.

..what should scientists do when reporting quality falls off a cliff? Earlier this year, I was seriously misrepresented by a newspaper and thrown into a political storm. Rather than take it lying down, I set the record straight.....

What lessons are there for scientists in politically charged areas who find themselves in a similar position? Do your research. What is the reporter's track record? Anticipate that every sentence you say or write may be dissected and interpreted in the least charitable manner possible. And if things go wrong, seek advice from public-relations experts, and where necessary, media lawyers. In my experience, science-media professionals are almost as lost as scientists themselves, when dealing with topics as emotive as climate change.

The media dictate what most people know about contemporary scientific debates. Given the need for informed policy, scientists need to learn to better read and engage with this media landscape. Closing the newspaper with a sigh is not enough.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

By P Gosselin on 19. November 2010
Antarctic sea ice simply refuses to melt, and stubbornly remains at a very high level. In fact in 2010 it reached its second highest level ever since satellite measurement began over 30 years ago. Normally Antarctic sea ice peaks at about 18.3 million sq km around September 20.

But this year, Antarctic sea ice reached that value already on about August 9 or so over 5 weeks early! Im using the graphic below to draw up these statements.

In 2010 Antarctic sea ice remained at or above the normal high peak (18.3 million sq km) for well over 2 months, from early August until late October. Thats quite awhile for the ice to hang around. I bet lots of penguins are happy about this.

Granted I havent gone back and taken a look at the stats over the years, but I doubt youll find very many years where this has happened. So you just have to laugh when physicists impostoring as climate scientists tell you the Antarctic is in trouble.

Fact is, its the climate scientist impostors who are in trouble, as we expose day by day. Dont be surprised if soon another model or paper comes out claiming global warming is causing more ice! Read here. Call it desperate pre-emptive damage control on their part.

Global Sea Ice

Overall global sea ice was steady until about 2004, then declined for a few short years. Since 2007 it has been trending upwards. Were at where we were about 20 years ago.

Many are now predicting a recovering Arctic over the next couple of years, like Joe Bastardi. With no further ice melt, the peculiar absence of tropical storms, and bitter winters returning, it all means alarmists will have to be content with the meager pickings of isolated heat waves, floods or droughts.

Measuring changes in Antarctic land ice mass has been a difficult process due to the ice sheet's massive size and complexity. However, since 2002 the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites have been able to comprehensively survey the entire ice sheet. The satellites measure changes in gravity to determine mass variations of the entire Antarctic ice sheet. Initial observations found that that most of Antarctic mass loss comes from Western Antarctica (Velicogna 2007). Meanwhile, from 2002 to 2005, East Antarctica was in approximate mass balance. The ice gained in the interior is roughly balanced by the ice loss at the edges. This is illustrated in Figure 1 which contrasts the ice mass changes in West Antarctica (red) compared to East Antarctica (green):

Quote:

As more GRACE data came in, a clearer understanding of the Antarctic ice sheet emerges. Figure 2 shows the ice mass changes in Antarctica for the period April 2002 to February 2009 (Velicogna 2009) . The blue line/crosses show the unfiltered, monthly values. The red crosses have seasonal variability removed. The green line is the best fitting trend.

Quote:

Antarctic sea ice has shown long term growth since satellites began measurements in 1979. This is an observation that has been often cited as proof against global warming. However, rarely is the question raised: why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? The implicit assumption is it must be cooling around Antarctica. This is decidedly not the case. In fact, the Southern Ocean has been warming faster than the rest of the world's oceans. Globally from 1955 to 1995, oceans have been warming at 0.1°C per decade. In contrast, the Southern Ocean has been warming at 0.17°C per decade. Not only is the Southern Ocean warming, it is warming faster than the global trend.

Quote:

If the Southern Ocean is warming, why is Antarctic sea ice increasing? There are several contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole has caused cooling in the stratosphere (Gillet 2003). This strengthens the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent (Thompson 2002). The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas lead to increased sea ice production (Turner 2009).

Another contributor is changes in ocean circulation. The Southern Ocean consists of a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Water from the warmer layer rises up to the surface, melting sea ice. However, as air temperatures warm, the amount of rain and snowfall also increases. This freshens the surface waters, leading to a surface layer less dense than the saltier, warmer water below. The layers become more stratified and mix less. Less heat is transported upwards from the deeper, warmer layer. Hence less sea ice is melted (Zhang 2007).

In summary, Antarctic sea ice is a complex and unique phenomenon. The simplistic interpretation that it must be cooling around Antarctica is decidedly not the case. Warming is happening - how it affects specific regions is complicated.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

...the National Academies of Science says the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change, the Republican Party is now dominated by fossil-funded ideologues who repeat zombie myths about global warming. An exclusive survey by Wonk Rooms Brad Johnson, with research support by Daily Kos blogger RL Miller, has identified the members of Congress that are on record challenging the scientific consensus:.....

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

States bordering water bodies that are becoming more acidic from the absorption of carbon dioxide should list them as impaired under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency declared in a memo this week.

Carbon dioxide emissions are considered a threat not only because of their heat-trapping properties in the atmosphere but also because of their ability to change ocean chemistry. The worlds oceans act as a sponge for carbon dioxide, and as the gas dissolves in seawater, it changes into carbonic acid.

More acidic seawater harms shellfish by inhibiting shell formation, a problem already observed at oyster farms along the Washington State coast. Ocean acidification is also seen as a major threat to the worlds coral reefs.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

A new study has yielded surprising findings about how the shells of marine organisms might stand up to an increasingly acidic ocean in the future. Under very high experimental CO2 conditions, the shells of clams, oysters, and some snails and urchins partially dissolved. But other species seemed as if they would not be harmed, and crustaceans, such as lobsters, crabs, and prawns, appeared to increase their shell-building (see interactive).

An important factor is that mollusks, are effected greatly. You might not expect all of the different types of organism to be effected the same. The shells of arthropods--ie crabs, lobsters and shrimp are different than mollusks which are almost all CaCO3. Shells of arthropods' shells also are composed of chitin. If you are familiar with arthropods, they molt when then have outgrown their shells. At first they are soft---like soft shell shell blue crabs? As time goes on their shells harden--probably by incorporating CaCO3 and hardening the chitin. Mollusks on the other hand continually incorporate CaCO3 into outer edges of their shells, increasing in size---tree ring like pattern of growth.

Loss of mollusks could impact food chains. Also there would be a loss of biodiversity.

Quote:

Marine ecosystemsparticularly those based on calcium-carbonate shell-building, such as coral or oyster reefscould change with increasing atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide), said Justin Ries, a marine biogeochemist and lead author of the study, published online Dec. 1, 2009, in the journal Geology. Sensitive species could lose their protective shells and eventually die out, while other species that build stronger shells could become dominant in a future ocean that continues to absorb the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by industrial emissions, deforestation, and other human activities.

Excess CO2 dissolves into the ocean and is converted to corrosive carbonic acid, a process known as ocean acidification. At the same time, the CO2 also supplies carbon that combines with calcium already dissolved in seawater to provide the main ingredient for shellscalcium carbonate (CaCO3), the same material found in chalk and limestone.

Quote:

As expected, in the highest CO2 used, the shells of some species, such as conchslarge, sturdy Caribbean snailsnoticeably deteriorated. The spines of tropical pencil urchins dissolved away to nubs. And clams, oysters, and scallops built less and less shell as CO2 levels increased.

However, two species of calcifying algae actually did better at 600 ppm (predicted for the year 2100) than at present-day CO2 levels, but then they fared worse again at even higher CO2 levels. Temperate (cool-water) sea urchins, unlike their tropical relatives, grew best at 900 ppm, as did a temperate limpet.

Crustaceans provided the biggest surprise. All three species testedthe blue crab, American lobster, and a large prawndefied expectations and grew heavier shells as CO2 swelled to higher levels.

"We were surprised that some organisms didn't behave in the way we expected under elevated CO2," said Anne Cohen, second author on the Geology paper. "Some organisms were very sensitive [to CO2 levels], but there were a couple [of species] that didn't respond 'til it was sky-highabout 2,800 parts per million. We're not expecting to see that [CO2 level] any time soon."

As expected from the above, different organism are affected differently.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

.National Research Council today issued three reports emphasizing why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change.* The reports by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, are part of a congressionally requested suite of five studies known as America's Climate Choices. "These reports show that the state of climate change science is strong," said Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences.*

Quote:

"But the nation also needs the scientific community to expand upon its understanding of why climate change is happening, and focus also on when and where the most severe impacts will occur and what we can do to respond."

....

Quote:

"Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for and in many cases is already affecting a broad range of human and natural systems,"

the report concludes.* It calls for a new era of climate change science where an emphasis is placed on "fundamental, use-inspired" research, which not only improves understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change but also is useful to decision makers at the local, regional, national, and international levels acting to limit and adapt to climate change.* Seven cross-cutting research themes are identified to support this more comprehensive and integrative scientific enterprise.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

The combustion of fossil fuels has enriched levels of CO2 in the worlds oceans and decreased ocean pH. Although the continuation of these processes may alter the growth, survival, and diversity of marine organisms that synthesize CaCO3 shells, the effects of ocean acidification since the dawn of the industrial revolution are not clear. Here we present experiments that examined the effects of the oceans past, present, and future (21st and 22nd centuries) CO2 concentrations on the growth, survival, and condition of larvae of two species of commercially and ecologically valuable bivalve shellfish (Mercenaria mercenaria and Argopecten irradians). Larvae grown under near preindustrial CO2 concentrations (250 ppm) displayed significantly faster growth and metamorphosis as well as higher survival and lipid accumulation rates compared with individuals reared under modern day CO2 levels. Bivalves grown under near preindustrial CO2 levels displayed thicker, more robust shells than individuals grown at present CO2 concentrations, whereas bivalves exposed to CO2 levels expected later this century had shells that were malformed and eroded. These results suggest that the ocean acidification that has occurred during the past two centuries may be inhibiting the development and survival of larval shellfish and contributing to global declines of some bivalve populations.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

Oh gee look, a study funded and conducted by the Indian government saying they're going to be the hardest hit by "climate change".

The government of India is positioning itself for a large piece of the pie, should the "developed world" deem it necessary to implement a wealth redistribution ponzi scheme under the guise of "saving the planet".

Trying to make the case that there is no evidence of data manipulation? The emails themselves spoke of data manipulation. The emails that weren't deleted before we could get to them, anyway.

Interesting read. A journalist trying to figure out how to cover "climate change" these days. How about reporting, you know...facts.

MORE DENIER'S REMORSE jg?

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

The Arctic is losing its signature feature sea ice. Further, warmer conditions have been measured in Greenland, and snow cover duration was at a record minimum this past year. This is according to the 2010 NOAA Arctic Report Card, released Oct. 21

The NOAA Arctic Report card shows consistent evidence that warming is occurring in the region and a return anytime soon to Arctic conditions of the past 25-30 years is unlikely. Dr. James Overland. of OAR's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, is co-author of the report, along with Jackie Richter-Menge from the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. The report was produced by a team of 69 international scientists and is based on 176 published scientific references.

"Greenland is experiencing record-setting high temperatures, summer sea ice conditions continue to be well below those of the 1980s and 1990s, and snow cover duration was at a record minimum since 1966," Dr. Overland said, summarizing the Arctic Report Card highlights....

"With future loss of sea ice, such cold conditions [in mid-latitude regions] as winter 2009-2010 could happen more often. Thus we have a potential climate change paradox. Rather than a general warming everywhere, the loss of sea ice and a warmer Arctic can increase the impact of the Arctic on lower latitudes, bringing colder weather to southern locations." ...

While 2009 showed a slowdown in the rate of annual air temperature increases in the Arctic, the first half of 2010 shows a near record pace with monthly anomalies of over 4°C in northern Canada. There continues to be significant excess heat storage in the Arctic Ocean at the end of summer due to continued near-record sea ice loss. There is evidence that the effect of higher air temperatures in the lower Arctic atmosphere in fall is contributing to changes in the atmospheric circulation in both the Arctic and northern mid-latitudes. Winter 2009-2010 showed a new connectivity between mid-latitude extreme cold and snowy weather events and changes in the wind patterns of the Arctic; the so-called Warm Arctic-Cold Continents pattern.

Figure A.1. Arctic-wide annual average surface air temperature anomalies relative to the 196190 mean, based on land stations north of 60°N from the CRUTEM 3v dataset, available online at www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/ data/temperature/. Note this curve does not include marine observations.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

Most scientists have assumed that, as carbon dioxide levels increase and the Earth warms, plant species diversity in the rainforests will start to dwindle, with plants unable to adapt to the heat. But a new study suggests that the opposite may be true. In the past, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and higher temperatures actually drove the evolution of far greater numbers of new rainforest plant species than were wiped out....

Jaramillo and his team analysed fossilized pollen trapped in rock cores from rainforests in Colombia and Venezuela. They spent seven years locating appropriate sites and taking samples, then used a battery of dating techniques to ensure that they were examining cores formed before, during and after the thermal maximum a relatively narrow time window in geological terms. The results are published this week in Science1.

However, Guy Harrington, a palaeobiologist at the University of Birmingham, UK, warns that any positive effects on plant diversity could be cancelled out if temperatures rise too quickly for plants to adapt. "It's the rate how fast you're turning up the heater that's the most important thing," he says.

The availability of water could be critical too, he adds. There was no shortage of water during the PETM, but the effects of future climate change on rainfall in the tropics are uncertain.
The beneficial effects of a hotter and more carbon dioxide-rich world may also be limited to the tropics. Harrington has studied fossil deposits from the period in North America, and says that many native species died out there as temperatures rose. He adds that higher latitudes are more likely to suffer from extreme conditions or lack of water.

Despite the caveats, Harrington fears that "uninformed climate sceptics will probably use this as evidence" to say that action on global warming isn't necessary. Jaramillo agrees: "Of course I'm worried some people will look at this and say 'we shouldn't care about global warming'," he says, "but this is what the fossil record is telling us."
Jaramillo believes that there is a more pressing threat to the diversity of tropical rainforests. "Deforestation is the real enemy," he says, "not the increase in temperature and carbon dioxide."

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

...Scientists long believed that the collapse of the gigantic ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica would take thousands of years, with sea level possibly rising as little as seven inches in this century, about the same amount as in the 20th century.

But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica.

As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three feet by 2100 an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a threat to coastal regions the world over....

Satellite evidence suggests that the rise of the sea accelerated late in the 20th century, so that the level is now increasing a little over an inch per decade, on average about a foot per century. Increased melting of land ice appears to be a major factor. Another is that most of the extra heat being trapped by human greenhouse emissions is going not to warm the atmosphere but to warm the ocean, and as it warms, the water expands.....

Climate scientists note that while the science of studying ice may be progressing slowly, the worlds emissions of heat-trapping gases are not. They worry that the way things are going, extensive melting of land ice may become inevitable before political leaders find a way to limit the gases, and before scientists even realize such a point of no return has been passed.

The past clearly shows that sea-level rise is getting faster and faster the warmer it gets, Dr. Rahmstorf said. Why should that process stop? If it gets warmer, ice will melt faster.

..during the period between April 2002 and February 2009. We find that during this time period the mass loss of the ice sheets is not a constant, but accelerating with time, i.e., that the GRACE observations are better represented by a quadratic trend than by a linear one, implying that the ice sheets contribution to sea level becomes larger with time.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions change earths climate by altering the planets radiative balance. An important first step in mitigation of climate change is to reduce annual increases in these emissions. However, the many suggested means of limiting emissions rates have led to few actual changes in policy or behavior. This disconnection can be attributed in part to the difficulty of convening groups of stakeholders with diverse values, the polarizing nature of current political systems, poor communication across disciplines, and a lack of clear, usable information about emission mitigation strategies. Here, electronically facilitated ethical deliberation, a method of determining courses of action on common goals by collaborative discussion, is used to evaluate Pacala and Socolows climate change stabilization strategies based on economic, technological, social, and ecological impacts across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Few previous analyses of climate mitigation strategies include all of these factors; rather, short-term technological feasibility studies and economic costbenefit analyses predominate. After accounting for tradeoffs among disparate criteria, strategies involving end-user efficiency (e.g., efficient buildings and vehicles), wind, and solar power rank highest, while carbon capture and storage, hydrogen fuel cells, and biofuels options rank lowest. This electronically facilitated deliberation method offers an alternative to oppositional debate or costbenefit analysis for assessing strategies where both quantitative and qualitative factors are important, information from disparate disciplines is relevant, and stakeholders are geographically dispersed.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything.....

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

Quote:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

Quote:

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

Quote:

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

Quote:

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

Quote:

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

....... Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.

Wouldn't it be fun to apply leftist/liberal reasoning to this and point fingers if they don't yield control?

First, I found science that says what I want. If you don't have science that says the opposite then by default you are wrong. If you find science that says the opposite and I don't like the sources you are wrong. If I think the source doesn't love trees or has any agenda other than trees then you are wrong.

Second, give it up and change it now. We have to do this. Things are bad now. They might get better if you give up all your wifi. WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. Also what's wrong with doing something even if the result is nothing. The world might be a better place anyway. It can't hurt (by my reasoning which doesn't consider human needs or industry or well anything other than control of you) and so you should be forced to do it.

Third, these trees are sick. They were sick before this to some degree but now more of them are sick. By default I blame wifi and thus we don't need any other explanation. My models might be completely wrong. They might need more refinement. My evidence might cause me to have to re-title, rethink and possibly alter entire conclusions and outcomes but it doesn't matter because it is science and your life must thus be under my control. It's different now and that is a good enough rationale for me to control your life.

Please don't resist or be skeptical. That is just proof you are ignorant, evil, a denier and hate the planet.

Send me your laptops and your wireless routers now you evil-doers. Do it now before I make a movie and millions while jetting around pointing my finger at you.

Wouldn't it be fun to apply leftist/liberal reasoning to this and point fingers if they don't yield control?

First, I found science that says what I want. If you don't have science that says the opposite then by default you are wrong. If you find science that says the opposite and I don't like the sources you are wrong. If I think the source doesn't love trees or has any agenda other than trees then you are wrong.

Second, give it up and change it now. We have to do this. Things are bad now. They might get better if you give up all your wifi. WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING. Also what's wrong with doing something even if the result is nothing. The world might be a better place anyway. It can't hurt (by my reasoning which doesn't consider human needs or industry or well anything other than control of you) and so you should be forced to do it.

Third, these trees are sick. They were sick before this to some degree but now more of them are sick. By default I blame wifi and thus we don't need any other explanation. My models might be completely wrong. They might need more refinement. My evidence might cause me to have to re-title, rethink and possibly alter entire conclusions and outcomes but it doesn't matter because it is science and your life must thus be under my control. It's different now and that is a good enough rationale for me to control your life.

Please don't resist or be skeptical. That is just proof you are ignorant, evil, a denier and hate the planet.

Send me your laptops and your wireless routers now you evil-doers. Do it now before I make a movie and millions while jetting around pointing my finger at you.

Quote:

What is that energy per photon? It's this:
This will give you the energy of a photon in electron volts given the wavelength in nanometers.

無心The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders., Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit__Edward Abbey